DH Painter & Decorator seals and paints new plaster in West Hunsbury, NN4, once builders and plasterers have finished. Dean covers the estate from Northampton, around 2.1 miles away, and quotes free for extensions, annexes, conversions and re-skimmed rooms.
An estate that keeps adding rooms
West Hunsbury was built in stages from 1970 into the 2000s, and its owners have been extending ever since. Agent listings on the estate regularly mention two-storey extensions, conservatories, garage conversions and self-contained annexes: an extended four-bed detached in Summerfields, a five-bed in Bramble End with its own annex, a three-bed semi on Merryhill with a rear conservatory. Larger plots, such as the plot of about a third of an acre listed on Reedhill, leave room for big rear additions.
Each of those projects ends with bare pink plaster that needs decorating. Fresh plaster is thirsty and alkaline, and ordinary emulsion rolled straight onto it tends to peel or flash. It needs drying time and a diluted mist coat first. Our guide to painting new plaster with a mist coat explains the reasons in detail.
Matching new rooms to a house built forty years ago
The hard part of an extension in West Hunsbury is rarely the new room on its own. It is the point where it meets the original house, and on 1980s and 1990s homes there are a few predictable trouble spots:
- The join line. Where a wall has been knocked through, new skim meets old plaster or plasterboard, and the edge shows through paint unless it is filled, sanded and primed.
- Different textures. Original ceilings in houses of this age sometimes have a textured finish, while the extension ceiling is flat. Painting both the same colour makes the difference more obvious, so we talk through options first.
- Two sets of skirting. New MDF skirting in the extension sits next to original softwood that may carry yellowed gloss. We prime and satin both so they match.
- One colour, two surfaces. An open-plan kitchen extension often shares walls with the old dining room, so we repaint far enough back that the old wall and the new wall read as one surface.
Project types we decorate on the estate
| Project | What we check before painting |
|---|---|
| Garage conversion | The floor-level skim is dry behind new skirting, the old garage wall is sound, and the old garage door opening has been fully plastered |
| Two-storey extension | Upstairs and downstairs plaster dried at different rates; the new stairwell or landing joins are flush |
| Annex | It is decorated as a self-contained unit with its own colour schedule, often in tougher finishes if it will be let or used by relatives |
| Conservatory link room | Plaster on the old external wall is dry, and the room’s strong sunlight is accounted for in the colour choice |
Shade, damp ground and drying times
Plaster drying times are not the same everywhere on the estate. Gardens backing onto the woodland around Hunsbury Hill Country Park get less sun, and low-lying plots near Wootton Brook and Ladybridge Park tend to hold damp. Extensions on those plots, especially ones finished in late autumn or winter, can take longer to dry than the builder’s schedule assumes. We check with a moisture meter rather than going by the calendar. If it is not ready, we tell you and come back.
Once the mist coat is on, any cracks, trowel marks and dents show up clearly, so we fill, sand and spot-prime those before the finish coats. New window boards, door linings and architraves get knotting and primer before their satin. The full scope of a typical job is set out on our new plaster and extension painting page, and the rest of our work on the estate is listed on the West Hunsbury area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
